I've encountered a few married female-male* couples that refer to each other as their partners. And I'm all for rejecting the narrow gender roles implied in the etymology of "husband" ("male head of a household, master of a house", whereas "wife" once meant simply "woman").**

(And I do know one male-female couple who'll sometimes semi-jokingly call each other "Spouse".***)

I also see "wife" and "husband" as entrenched, widely understood words for spouses, words that have shifted from their original connotations. My impression is that men talking about their husbands, and women talking about their wives, have helped many straight people see same-sex marriage for what it is: not some separate institution of "gay marriage" but a natural part of marriage.

But whatever particular partners call each other (politely, in public, and without trying to impose roles on the rest of us, like someone insisting they be addressed as "Lord and Master"), I'll follow their lead.

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* Interesting how various expressions such as "male and female", "husband and wife", "he or she", invariably put the man first. When I'm paying attention I often consciously break that pattern. ("'Man' is a false generic, as in 'Man, being a mammal, breastfeeds his young.'")

** Other languages can be worse: I remember reading about Israeli feminists proposing a replacement for the Hebrew term for "husband", which is literally the same word as "master, lord, owner", whereas "wife" is the same word as "woman". They suggested that a man's spouse refer to him as "my man", parallel to how a woman's spouse refers to her as "my woman". No idea how well that caught on.

Funny - God must have been trying to flood the houses of evil people and got Tony's by mistake. Where's all that omniscience and omnipotence when they need it??? No doubt Pat Robertson will have a wet dream explaining this riddle wrapped in an enigma swaddled in bullshit.

Thank you, Daniel, for this very sweet and powerful film. As a heterosexual woman raised in a culture of rigid patriarchy, in some ways, it is easy to understand the challenges facing LGTB, and in other ways, I don't recognize the hurdles Gays encounter.